So Sue Me by Robert Bagnall
“I didn’t order…” he says, confused and irritated when I knock on the apartment door. He’s wearing a suit and tie, matching kerchief in breast pocket, and for an instant I fear he’s in the middle of something with guests. And then it clicks. It’s just who he is. And then I click for him. […]
To Whom It May Concern by Serena Jayne
Dear Manufacturer of Rid Yourself of the Red eye drops, Your product packaging seems designed to make Rid Yourself of the Red a deceptive doppelganger of the named brand product. Same cardboard box. Same red, white, and blue color scheme. Same tamper-resistant seal. But your product contains a different active ingredient. As if I could […]
Antsy by Zachary Wilhide
One lighted window shined in the mass of darkness of the industrial park. The dashboard clock said 3 a.m. I yawned and looked over at Green Johnny, fidgety in the passenger seat, downing a fourth energy drink. “You know you’re not going to be able to sleep after that.” “So?” “So, I like it quiet […]
Book Release: Grit, Black, Blood by Ashley Erwin
We are please to release Grit, Black, Blood by Ashley Erwin, a uniquely grit-laden family saga that bleeds coal from hill to the holler. What to Expect inside… In the last conversation Ronnie reckons he’ll ever have, he’s finally forced to divest the blood lines, giving life to all those bad’ns that make up that […]
Book Release: A Shelter of Others by Charles Dodd White
Returning to print, Shotgun Honey Books is proud to re-release A Shelter of Others by Charles Dodd White. What to Expect inside… Following his release from prison, Mason Laws returns to the mountains of his youth where his estranged wife, Lavada, has been caring for his ailing father in Mason’s absence. The marriage, however, is […]
Flat Lost It by Stuart Watson
As it played out, I was working for my boss’s wife when I lost mine and ended up with another. Follow along. I had come out of Daddy D’s with lunch. It was supposed to be for my boss and me. I wasn’t hungry. His wife had paid me to dose it with rat poison. […]
Nowhere to Burn by Rob D. Smith
Caleb woke to a long ripping noise behind him. Moonlight dappled through the canopy of leaves above him. He felt rough bark against his back. When he tried to move, he found he couldn’t pull his torso away from the tree. He tugged but his arms were trapped too. To his left, a woman with […]
Carving Table by Bobby Mathews
Shaun Burnett was the kind of guy who never lost his temper, so he was the perfect Thanksgiving host for the people in his group of friends who couldn’t travel for the holidays. The group — eight guys and six women — was large enough so that it was convenient to forget who had slept […]
The Knife Job by Sean Jacques
They’re ambling down a log road that cuts through a thick patch of woods. Their faces are pink from the cold, and they keep pulling up their collars to block the wind from their necks. The older one, Peck, holds a GPS tracker and studies its coordinates, while Lohr keeps his hands stuffed inside his […]
Where Palms Sway and the Surf Pounds by Curtis Ippolito
Between drywall jobs, I booked it to Ocean Beach to beat some respect into a piss-ant thief named Nick Russell. He’d broke into a house in North Park the night before, robbed an elderly couple at gunpoint, and pistol-whipped both before fleeing. None of it sat well with me, seeing as how the victims were […]
Useless by Song Gao Lei
Wu Yong awoke to the sound of boisterous conversation coming from the house’s main room. He saw his wife, Liao Wen, walk by the door, straining as she carried a bucket of water from the well. On her way out, he beckoned her into the bedroom and asked about his breakfast. ‘My elder brothers have […]
Another Amateur Night by Gordon Linzner
Amateurs can make one’s job too easy. I waited next to the elevator on the fourteenth floor, affixing the hotel employee ID to my jacket’s breast pocket. From the corner of my eye, I watched a young man, mid-twenties, leather briefcase tucked under his left arm, fumble with the key card. Finally, he turned it […]
